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ISLAM IN AUSTRALIA
8 POLICY • Vol. 30 No. 4 • Summer 2014–2015
Muslim community set up a program of education,
including appropriate religious scholarship. Young
people are idealistic, and this makes them open to
radical ideas. Those from traditional backgrounds
but growing up in Australia may be particularly
vulnerable, for reasons already discussed in
connection with England. It is ineffectual, in the
face of rationalistic radicalism, simply to reaffirm
tradition. (Equally ineffectual, it seems to me, is
to ban the publication of such radical material,
as the Australian government has done, not least
considering that it is often freely available on the
Internet.)
Second, Muslims ought to inform the rest
of us about Islam and explain the sensitivities of
Muslims. Non-Muslims face a range of behaviour,
dress, and concerns that are foreign to them—what,
they might ask, was the precise nature of Muslim
concerns about the Danish cartoons or Salman
Rushdie’s novel? What is the rationale behind certain
observant Muslims’ ways of eating, or dressing? The
answers to these questions are not obvious to a
non-Muslim, and non-Muslims can hardly respect
Muslim concerns if they are not made clear and
intelligible. This requires Muslims’ being willing to
educate and to inform, which involves some hard
work. There will, however, surely be other informed
parties who will be happy to assist. There is also an
obligation on the part of the rest of the Australian
population to take seriously such issues when they
are raised by our fellow citizens.
Third, there is a wider issue for observant
Muslims as to how Sharia law is to be interpreted in
ways which are authentic but which also make sense
under modern conditions. There are many difficult
issues here, including the idea that the “doors of
interpretation” are now closed and the question
of the reestablishment of scholarly authority. In
addition, there may be some aspects of modern life
to which the observant are legitimately reluctant
to accommodate themselves. Still, on the face of
it, something missing in Australia is a tradition of
orthodox scholarship concerned with conditions
of life in current circumstances—perhaps a
Muslim equivalent of Modern Orthodoxy or
the conservative wing of Conservative Judaism
in the U.S. Here, Abdalla’s work points towards
important developments in Europe which might
serve as a model.
I will conclude with two suggestions directed
towards the government. First, Western
governments, in my view, should not get involved
in attempts to interpret Islam, or to support
“moderates.” It is not only offensive but also
counter-productive if non-believers try to get
involved in such issues. Offensive, because it is
obviously problematic if they try to tell people
what they should believe; counter-productive,
as it would surely serve to undermine the appeal
of “moderate” scholars if they were seen to be
in the pay of the Australian government. What
governments can—and in my view should—do
here, is to make use of the law against incitements
to racial or religious hatred (including of fellow
Muslims), or against those who try to entice others
to take part in illegal activities, fighting for overseas
governments or other military groups. The offences,
here, can be defined in purely secular terms, and
to pursue them, and to inform everyone that they
are offences which will be taken seriously, does not
involve issues of a religious character at all.
Second, Innes Bowen’s book has been heralded
as invaluable in early reviews by both Muslims and
non-Muslims. At the same time, it has obvious
limitations—for example, its concern with the
“official” positions of various groups to the exclusion
of the views, ideas, and aspirations of groups’
ordinary members. But Bowen is a BBC journalist
and the work for this book was undertaken in her
spare time. Important research underlying her book
was done by an English convert to Islam, Mehmood
Naqshbandi, who works full-time in IT and spends
his own time documenting the distribution and
affiliation of mosques in Britain. Given that
Bowen was able to show in passing that on several
occasions government advisors did not know what
they were talking about when dealing with issues
related to Islam, it seems a scandal that such work
is not being undertaken—and properly funded—
within departments of sociology, anthropology, and
Islamic Studies. There is surely a lesson here, and
not just for the UK.